


held together with tape and gold

by quoth_the_ravenclaw



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Comfort, Doctor Iwaizumi Hajime, Future Fic, M/M, Mentions of past injury, Pro Volleyball Player Oikawa Tooru, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, mentions of past mental health issues (if you squint and self project like i always do), overuse of athletic tape and visual symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 12:17:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16555604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quoth_the_ravenclaw/pseuds/quoth_the_ravenclaw
Summary: “What’s the point of dating a doctor if you don’t even take care of me?” Oikawa asks.Iwaizumi is secretly a selfish person. His boyfriend has more athletic tape than reason. They make it work.





	held together with tape and gold

Iwaizumi is secretly a selfish person. 

He loves his residency, the doctors he gets to work with and the patients he gets to help. He loves his friends, seldom as he gets to see them. And he loves his boyfriend. His clingy, loud, ridiculous, magnificent boyfriend.

Iwaizumi loves all these things, but what he secretly loves most of all? Are the nights when he's not on call and Oikawa trips home from practice all sweaty and gross, barricading himself in the bathroom for at least an hour to shampoo and moisturize and whatever-else, leaving Iwaizumi alone in blissful, peaceful silence.

Iwaizumi is a selfish person. He loves his residency and his friends and his boyfriend, but he also loves having some things to himself. There isn’t enough money in the world to make him give up this simple hour to himself. He clings to it stubbornly, even as he hears the rumble of the tub draining and smells the sweet jasmine air of the bathroom as Oikawa swings the door open.

“ _Iwa-chan_ ,” Comes the all-too-familiar trill from down the hall. “ _Come help me._ ”

Iwaizumi sighs. A good boyfriend would probably be up and out of their seat already, but Iwaizumi is selfish. He likes to have some things to himself (quiet, time, and tea, mostly). He takes a minute to savor the last sips from his cup, then rises to carefully rinse and dry it. He straightens the cabinet, pushes his chair back in, and once everything is in its place, then and only then does his relinquish his solitude and make the trek to their tiny shared bedroom.

Oikawa is exactly as he expects: contorted in front of the mirror, tongue sticking out in concentration, roll of electric purple athletic tape in his hand.

“How many times have I told you to take better care of yourself?” Iwaizumi grouses, but takes the tape from Oikawa anyways and sits on the bed. Oikawa preens under his attention (he always does) and scoots himself to settle between Iwaizumi’s legs, back straight, neck craned to throw a teasing glance over his shoulder.

“What’s the point of dating a doctor if you don’t even take care of me?” Oikawa asks.

“Not a doctor yet,” Iwaizumi grunts, fingers tracing the technicolor muscle of Oikawa’s back.

“Mmm, but you will be. That’s the difference between you and me, Iwa-chan- I have my eye on the future.”

Iwaizumi snorts. “So that’s why you’re such a mess in the present, huh?”

Oikawa opens his mouth with some smart retort, but it turns into a squeak when Iwaizumi’s fingers find a particularly tender spot and dig in. Iwaizumi huffs out a breath through his nose and resists the urge to kiss it better. “Serves you right,” he says instead.

“I’m reporting you for abuse,” Oikawa whines, head lolling back to rest on Iwaizumi’s shoulder.

“Better report yourself first,” Iwaizumi says, careful fingers soothing the ache he stirred up. He tilts Oikawa's head forward so he can work, applying the athletic tape with meticulous focus. It’s a familiar action, comforting in its routine. Iwaizumi has done this for Oikawa (and at one point, Oikawa had done it for him) since they were kids who had too much energy for their own good, who left their hearts on the court and came back with bruised shins and sore muscles instead. Iwaizumi moves slow but steady, lets his hands do the same work they’ve done for years. He pushes and pulls and prods, and Oikawa lets him, easy and willing in his arms. 

Oikawa's body is a map of bruises, galaxies of blue and purple and sickly yellow blooming across his skin, a testament of his hard work. His arms are still red from receives, thighs crisscrossed with tiny stretchmarks he’ll whine about in the shower, hands calloused and cracked no matter how much lotion he slathers on them. The scar on his knee has faded to a faint white, but it will never go away, not completely.

He’s a patchwork of injuries old and new, and maybe for anyone else who saw him it'd be worrisome. But Iwaizumi remembers when the injuries were worse. When his knee was an angry red reminder of all the things Oikawa couldn’t do. When the bruises on his arms were replaced with dark circles under his eyes, sunken cheeks, nails bitten past the quick that left blood stains on their sheets. He thinks about those times and feels his stomach twist in something like heartache and relief. Heartache for the nights of sleep they both lost, for the words they both said they’d later regret, for the boy he watched fracture under expectations too heavy to bear. But with the heartache comes relief, warm, radiant, and brilliant. Relief for the man he watched build himself back up from broken pieces, who took the places where cracks used to be and made them whole and beautiful, forged with gold. He survived. They both did, and now they’re better for it.

Sometimes Iwaizumi imagines parading him around his residency: Oikawa Tooru, modern medical miracle, the boy who shouldn’t be able to walk, let alone hit an Olympic medal winning serve.

But Iwaizumi is selfish. He likes having certain things to himself. Quiet. Tea. Oikawa: bare, scarred and bruised and flawed and perfect, laid out for him and only him.

Iwaizumi smooths the last strip of tape into place, touch lingering long after it needs to.

“Be careful next time, idiot.” He says into the crown of Oikawa’s hair.

Oikawa smiles and cracks an eye open to peer at him. “But then Iwa-chan wouldn’t get to make me better again.”

Iwaizumi lets himself smile back. “You’re right, what would I ever do with all that free time?”

Oikawa twists around, lets his long legs splay on either side of Iwaizumi’s hips, and wraps his arms around Iwaizumi’s neck. “I can think of a few ideas,” he whispers into the red-hot pulse at his throat.

Iwaizumi should probably protest, swat Oikawa away and insist he rest after a long day of training. Instead, he traces the line of Oikawa's breastbone, feels the quiet rhythm of his heart thrumming, alive and golden.

Iwaizumi should probably protest, he thinks, for Oikawa’s good.

But Iwaizumi is selfish. Instead, he leans forward, seals their lips together, and indulges.

**Author's Note:**

> it's been four years and i would still die for iwaoi
> 
> find me on tumblr: quoth-the-ravenclaw


End file.
